1000 Fireflies synchronised bike lights

I recently met David who started the 1000 fireflies project.

Basically he's designed and fabricated bike lights that fall into sync with one another within a certain range, like fireflies do:

'The devices are outfitted with microcontrollers and radio units that allow them to mutually and observably synchronize with others, as do certain species of firefly. These devices, in isolation, look similar to conventional LED cycling safety lights, but in groups exhibit an immediately noticeable and striking phenomenon of unified flashing.'

Have a look at the videos - http://1000fireflies.net/

I was just imagining my commute home and how it would look if all the riders' lights were synchronised along the way.

I think visually it would create a bigger sense of organism and presence... maybe quite useful in terms of road safety as cyclists would appear like a continuous mass.

Mmm, synchronised flashing

In, List!

1. Andy.w
   

Yeahhh

1. Andy.w
   
2. Benedict
   

maybe quite useful in terms of road safety as cyclists would appear like a continuous mass.

There may be a down side to this. Difficult to pin it down precisely, but making things on the road look like other things strikes me as a bad move.

ffm - might be along the lines of your eye being drawn to one cyclist flashing light so when you look away during the off-flash you dont see the second? I find when behind a large group of cyclists the off-sequence flashing of various lights gives you a good idea of how many you are approaching. However, having never approached a group flashing in unison I have 0 basis for comparison.

Yep, the fact that zebras (in one theory) use the multiplicity of similarly identical patterns to confuse approaching predators as to number within a herd, may have a similar affect on drivers.
Potentially.
It will still look cool, but I'm not sure one way or the other about safety...

ffm - might be along the lines of your eye being drawn to one cyclist flashing light so when you look away during the off-flash you dont see the second? I find when behind a large group of cyclists the off-sequence flashing of various lights gives you a good idea of how many you are approaching. However, having never approached a group flashing in unison I have 0 basis for comparison.

Something like this could be the case. Or it could, as you say, just be that encouraging perceptual grouping of a number of objects reduces your ability to judge their number and direction. So, for example, if all but one cyclists turns off left and one carries straight on, will your judgement of the lone cyclist's position, direction and speed be skewed by the action of the larger group of cyclists? I could be 180-degrees wrong about this, it might actually help!